Tokenising the Himalayan Rocket Stove – A Thought Experiment

Tokenising the Himalayan Rocket Stove – A Thought Experiment

Considering the possibility of creating a “Rocket Coin” for maximising benefits to users and supporters of HRS.Please read and comment if you have any input on this.

PREAMBLE

Himalayan Rocket Stove Pvt Ltd is a social enterprise registered in India with an international team developing high efficiency biomass combustion heaters for the Himalayan market, with a view to scaling out to various global markets with a range of products that feature our technical innovations in low cost high temperature combustion technology.

The company is manufacturing and selling currently in the north of India, targeting the Himalayan belt initially. The target market size in that region is 100 million people in 20 million homes, the vast majority of whom require biomass combustion for heating for approx 4-6 months of the year for survival.

Our products reduce fuel demand by bringing up the combustion temps to 900 – 1000C with no moving parts, oxidising unburnt particulates in smoke generated in the primary combustion, thereby reducing pollutants and increasing heat output approximately 100% for a given fuel input.

This has several benefits.

1. More trees left in the ground 2. Less CO2 released to atmosphere (50% reduction equates to 2-5 tons CO2 savings per year per unit in a domestic heating situation) 3. Less Black Carbon and other noxious gases released to atmosphere (approx 90% + reduction, yet to be verified by independent 3rd party) 4. Reduced drudgery for women and children who do the bulk of wood collecting for heating and cooking.

HRS APP

We have developed a simple app that enables direct sales to our customers, a good percentage of whom have Android based smartphones. Via the app we will incentivise our existing and potential customers to share information about us to their networks via a points based reward system. This is now in the final stages of development and will be rolled out over coming weeks:

Search ‘Himalayan Rocket Stove’ on Play Store for the current release of the app or use the link here:

BLOCKCHAIN

Instead of points, could we integrate ERC20 tokens (or similar) into the app as the tool for exchanging value?

These tokens could be backed, linked or indexed in some way to a carbon trading system that rewards users for their reduction in carbon emissions and for sharing about our products.

1. Ideally the carbon trading system will be one of the decentralised systems that are working to get their own tokens off the ground, as the standard centralised carbon trading system is top heavy, sluggish and high friction to join.

The HRS Tokens will serve as a currency to reward our customers for various behaviours – Usage and Sharing in particular. Trading will be an additional benefit for HRS customers and non-customers alike.

USAGE (of HRS Products)

Using our high efficiency stove/heaters has Market Value based on reduction of CO2 outputs 1. How to assess this needs to be clarified, perhaps photo to social media tagging us that the stove is installed in their home and being used 2. Average reduction of CO2 outputs can be independently verified and averaged for a given region 3. A percentage of the market value of CO2 can be passed through to the user via the tokens in 2 ways: a. value of held tokens indexed to market value of CO2 b. accumulation of additional tokens over time (usage benefit) – (generated or released from a storage container?)

SHARING (about HRS Products)

Sharing via the HRS App to their social networks about our products has Marketing Value to HRS, and promotes greater usage of our products. This can be achieved via: 1. Uploading images 2. Mentioning our company name (measure hashtags?) 3. Mentioning our products (measure keywords?) 4. Recommendations that lead to sales are especially well rewarded (measure via referral links tracked through the app) 5. Recommendations that lead to downloads of the app are also rewarded (measure via referral link) 6. Other kinds of sharing yet to be identified

TRADING (of HRS Tokens)

Trading the tokens on the HRS app for discounts and product benefits is one way to exchange them for tangible rewards. This benefit is already achievable with an internal ‘point’ based system.

If the tokens get listed on an exchange, users can trade tokens for other kinds of cryptocurrency and enter the world of digital value exchange, offering increasing benefit as world-wide adoption of digital tokens increase.

Tokens could be purchased and traded by non-users of the HRS products who seek to support a carbon offset program backed by real world products and users. This needs further research to understand the carbon trading market better.

There is obviously more to explore here, and in terms of raising funds for the company to roll out and implement this strategy, we would be keen to examine the trading options and benefits to non-users, in particular those seeking to offset their carbon outputs.

SUMMARY

This is a preliminary thought experiment designed to invite input on the viability and options with regards to tokenizing the value generated by HRS’s ability to reduce CO2 outputs as well as other environmental and social benefits. This document focusses on carbon as this has a recognised value on global markets already.

Perhaps other environmental and social benefits can also be valued and tokenized in some way?

Trees in the ground have an incredibly high value for local and global eco systems that is difficult to articulate in the reductionist language of economics. Perhaps we can measure more than carbon in the tokenizing of value based on usage. As a social enterprise, it is the intention for HRS to measure these metrics as part of an annual reporting process. Trees saved, reductions in hours of work, black carbon, toxic emissions, CO, SO2, etc are all things we can measure and report on as we develop our customer base and reporting procedures.

Via the HRS App, beyond being a shopping cart and marketing tool, it is also a direct line of communication between HRS and our customers. We can ask them to complete surveys and reward them for their time with tokens, as an example of exchanging their time/data with value.

If you have any thoughts on this matter, please respond to the author here:

You can now purchase the Smokeless Cookstove Kit online with our partner org, Himalayan Rocket Stove who make these kits for us. All the proceeds from sales of these kits go back to funding our projec...

A bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra imposed the restraint on the authorities, which have been empowered under the Forest Rights Act (FRA) to allow felling of trees, not exceeding 75 trees per hectar...